The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) led by Justice Haruna Tsammani on Wednesday dismissed the claims of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, that they won 25% of needed votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
During the 2023 presidential election on February 25, LP and Obi won 25%, by securing about 59 per cent of the votes cast.
Neither President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (19 per cent) nor Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (15 per cent) scored up to 25 per cent of the votes in the Nigerian capital.
Ruling on the petition, the five-man tribunal dismissed the charge saying Abuja is like the other 36 states of the federation.
According to the tribunal, FCT residents have no special privileges as the petitioners claimed.
Ruling on that ground of the petition challenging the INEC non-compliance on the transfer of results from BVAS and IREV, Justice Haruna Tsammani held that there is no provision of the Electoral Act, INEC Manual and Regulations that specifically provides for electronic transmission of results.
On the fine of $460,000 for narcotics: They ruled that the sentence of crime for any offence involving dishonesty or fraud from section 37(d) has to be a criminal offence and LP did not provide evidence that it was a criminal offence but the respondents proved it was not a criminal trial.
The tribunal also ruled section 137(d) and (e) must be read together, which means, after 10 years, whatever crime the candidate would’ve committed is no longer relevant.